Hi there,
Was at The Cathay Restaurant for dim sum lunch with my family the other day and decided to do a review on it. That was actually my second visit. The first time I went there was on a weekday and we had dim sum lunch and it was great, so I have already planned some time to bring my family to there to enjoy some Cantonese dim sum.
I find their dim sum close to the ones that I used to have in Hong Kong & Macau and some of the dishes are really creative yet tasty so I couldn’t wait to bring my family there.
Located at 2nd floor of Cathay, it has a very simplistic yet stylish mordern decor, with calligraphy prints & pictures plastering all over the restaurant. We reached there at about noon on a rainy day, but there were already quite a few customers there.
Although we had dim sum that day, we also spotted quite a few tables which only ordered set menus or ala carte menus, those actually look exceptionally good, because of how pretty they look on the plate, they were served in interesting looking plates & shooter glasses with edible decorations just like a piece of art in every dish.
There were people ordering some stewed pork which needed to be eaten with knife & fork, hot stone dishes, and also Peking duck, although the peking duck looks great, however, the waitress who were trying to slice the duck skin was not skilled at all, just right next to our table, she was struggling so badly to slice it and you can see there were various sizes and shapes. All these were just right next to us, I wonder how many people saw it too and agree with us on that..
We were served with appetizer of some sze chuan flavored shredded chicken with cucumber slices & black fungus slices. My mum love it a lot, and of course appetizer like every restaurant is charged at a premium, here they charge $3++ for it. Well, at least it tasted good. Chinese tea was at $1 per person, and is always promptly refilled.
Now back to the dim sum, one of the biggest reason I like to dine there is that, the dim sum served all at one go or at least in large quantities. You don’t just get 1 or 2 plates, polished them off and then wait for quite some time for the next one to be served. Here you might just need to wait a while and not before long, you will get a whole table full of steaming hot dim sum. So you can enjoy everything at once. 🙂
Service was prompt and even non chinese staff know the food well, which is quite commendable, although they lack smiles, I guess you can’t have best of both world.
However, some of the staff really stand out, during my first visit, there was this waitress who kept promoting to us what is nice or just freshly steamed, and kept coming back to us to help us cut the fried items into smaller pieces so that we can share among each other and can fill our tummy with more goodies.
Okay, now about the dim sum. Cha Siew Bao was fluffy and the cha siew meat was delicious and not dry, just the right amount of meat & fatty bits with tasty slightly sweetened sauce in it.
I don’t usually like chicken feet that served in other restaurants, because it is either too skinny, or the sauce was a bit too salty or even bitter. But the steamed chicken feet was my favourite during this meal. The first time I have it at The Cathay Restaurant, I was very surprised by how good it is. The chicken feet was spongy and the sauce was sooo good, the right kind of spiciness and saltiness, very addictive!!
Next is the Char Siew rice roll, the rice roll was delicately placed on a long plate with sprinkles of corriander. It look so nice that you don’t feel like breaking up into pieces. Taste wise, hmm.. let’s just say it looks better than it taste.
The rice roll was not soft enough. I feel the best rice roll, need to be thin and soft yet a little chewy. Here the rice roll is a little thick which constititues to the chewiness, so not one of my favourites, but my son enjoyed it.
The custard buns or Yolk Cream buns was one of the highlight, we actually ordered 2 plates, because it was so good. We like how the fillings was not too excessive and is at the right amount which is proportion to the buns. The custard was of a great marriage of saltiness & sweetness. It can serve like a dessert or a savory bun. Best served piping hot.
I have also ordered a sliced fish porridge for my son. This is very much again different from those you get from Crystal Jade or Imperial Treasure. It comes in a small bowl, with a few sliced fish and thinly sliced ginger.
The porridge was very thick, taste wise it is quite bland, the sliced fish was fresh thou, no muddy taste of any sort, and the reason I like it was that it did not taste of any MSG inside, and a very good choice when you have kids or toddlers, so you can feed this to them.
If you really want me to choose one dish which I didn’t like, I would say the gyoza, the fillings were tasteless and dry, and not even an overdose of black vinegar with ginger can save it. I think if the gyoza has a little bit more crunch or more vegetables in the pork fillings, it will make it more juicy & palatable.
The fried savory dumpling with prawn & cheese was delightful, prawn and cheese encased inside a fried puffy mochi. The sweetened chewiness of the mochi work marvellously with the cheesy shrimps inside.
As for the siew mai, main stay in every dim sum dining. Here it has the right balance of meat and shrimp in it and it was served piping hot (you can tell by the pics, it was a little blurry because there was so much steam). Goes well with the chilli sauce.
Steamed pork ribs was another commendable dish. So far when I go to other palces for dim sum, the pork ribs are really mostly – ribs. I know I know, it is steamed pork ribs not pork cubes, but it is hard to find places like The Cathay Restaurant where they placed equal quantity of pork & ribs to the dish. So you can savor the pork ribs at the same time with enough bites.
Xiao Long Bao was juicy and the essence of the pork was infused in the broth. However the skin is a tad thicker than what you will get at Ding Tai Fong, but it is nevertheless tasty. I ordered 2 times so there must be something right about it.
Other dishes we have ordered included pork trotter in vinegar as well. They use small quail egg instead of large eggs, so that more diners can enjoy the eggs with black vinegar. The pork trotter was stewed long enough,and the vinegar has infused every bit of the meat and skin. Good for a vinegar fix or for anybody who loves black vinegar.
I tried Egg tart during my first visit and it was okay only, mini but not enough punch, probably because the pastry was not flaky enough. Har Gao which is steamed prawn dumplings were good too.
Overall, I found dim sum at The Cathay Restaurant consist majority a lot of shrimps. The shrimps were fresh nevertheless and every dish is delightful. There are a few miss during the second time I visited them, but I will still go back, because overall, I still think the dim sum there is better than many places you can find. I will also definitely try their ala carte dishes given so many people ordered them during my visits.
Pricing of the dim sum is below, which seemed to be the norm at this quality:
APPETIZER
- Deep fried Phoenix Prawn on toast : $6
- Deep fried fillet of sea erch with wasabi salad cream : $6
- Deep fried Chicken winglet with prawn paste : $6
- Spare Rib with Special sauce : $6
- Pan fried rice roll homestyle : $6
- Fried carrot cake and bean sprouts with Xo chilli sauce : $8
- Pig’s trotters in Vinegar Sauce : $6
STEAMED DIM SUM
- Steamed vegetables dumplings : $3.6
- Steamed bean curd skin with oyster sauce : $3.90
- Steamed prawn & spinach dumpling : $3.80
- Steamed prawn dumpling with Spicy sauce : $3.90
- Steamed siew mai with crab roe : $4.50
- Steamed fresh prawn dumpling : $4.5
- Steam scallop dumpling : $4.5
- Shark’s fin dumpling in superior soup : $8.5
- Steamed BBQ Pork Bun : $3.6
- Steamed Yolk cream bun : $3.9
- Steamed Xiao Long Bao : $3.9
- Steamed mushroom crystal dumpling : $3.9
- Steamed Glutinous rice in Lotus leave : $4.30
- Steamed Char Siew rice roll : $4.8
- Steamed chicken feet with black pepper sauce : $3.6
- Steamed spare ribs with black bean sauce : $3.90
- Durian mochi : $4.5
FRIED ITEMS
- Pan fried gyoza : $3.90
- Fried savoury dumpling with prawn & cheese : $3.90
- Deep fried prawn with salad cream : $3.9
- Deep fried taro with minced chicken & mushroom : $3.9
- Baked mexican custard bun : $3.90
- Baked BBQ pork pastry : $3.90
- Deep fried spring roll with shredded chicken : $3.6
- Deep fried beancurd skin roll with seaweed : $4.5
- Deep fried prawn roll with banana : $4.5
- Pan fried carrot cake with chinese sausages : $3.9
- Pan fried shredded yam & pumpkin cake : $3.9
- Baked mini egg tarts : $3.9
PORRIDGE
- Shredded chicken & conpoy porridge : $8
- Sliced fish porridge : $8
- Sliced seafood porridge : $8
- Century egg porridge : $4
* All subject to service charge & GST.
They also have promotions from Mondays to Fridays, where you can enjoy 20% off. Unless you are VIP member, then you can enjoy 30% instead.
One other thing I like about them is that the staff are quite proactive, they will tell you up front what credit card promotions they have and encouraged us to use it. You don’t really see this much in restaurant. Kudos to them.
Restaurant Reviews : The Cathay Restaurant Dim Sum Reviews
Locations : 2 handy road #02-01 the cathay, singapore 229233
Operation hours :
Weekday & Saturday : 11.30am – 3.00pm (Lunch) / 6.00pm – 10.30pm (Dinner)
Sunday : 10.00am – 3.00pm (Lunch) / 6.00pm – 10.30pm (Dinner)
Tel: 6732 7888
Happy Dining!
If you want the latest news, or get daily promotion updates on restaurants, supermarkets, food fairs, or simply check out some simple recipe ideas & reviews, please visit us at singaporesupermarketrecipes.com or subscribe to our mailing list for more details.
Cheers,
Dawn